Specialized working memory may be especially important for aggressive mimics that express flexibility in their use of signals.

We have seen flexibility already when, for example, we considered the strategies of bolas https://www.selleckchem.com/products/gsk126.html spiders that use different chemical signals at different stages in their lives and with different prey. However, it is especially with Portia that the cognitive character of aggressive mimicry is strikingly expressed in conjunction with extreme predatory versatility and flexibility. Especially many of Portia’s tactics are based on invading the webs of non-salticid spiders and, for understanding these tactics, we need an understanding of the web spider’s unusual sensory system. We may be predisposed to think of sense organs as being part of an animal’s anatomy, but the web in conjunction with setae and slit sensilla on the spider’s body is the primary sense organ of the web spiders on which Portia preys (Witt,

1975; Barth, 2001). It is particularly interesting that this sense organ is extended out into the environment because this means that Portia can walk directly into it. In another spider’s web, Portia’s intimacy with its prey’s sensory world gives especially literal meaning to the expression ‘sensory exploitation’. By invading a web, Portia enters into intimate and often dangerous contact with its prey’s sensory world – dangerous because the tables may be turned, and Portia’s intended dinner may Pexidartinib become the diner (e.g. Jackson et al., 2002). After entering

a web, instead of simply stalking or chasing down the resident spider, Portia communicates using web signals (Tarsitano, Jackson & Kirchner, 2000), ‘web DNA Damage inhibitor signals’ referring to the vibratory and tension patterns Portia generates by using any one or any combination of its 10 appendages (eight legs and two palps). Each appendage can be moved independently and in a variety of ways, with the net effect being that Portia has at its disposal virtually an unlimited assortment of different signals for potential use when in other spiders’ webs (Jackson & Blest, 1982). This is relevant because, instead of targeting only one or only a few web-building spider species, Portia appears to be ready to take on almost any spider it finds in a web, as long as the other spider is similar to Portia’s own size. However, each of these prey spiders has its own refined ability to acquire and process sensory information (Barth, 2001). Many variables, including the resident spider’s species, sex–age class, feeding state and previous experience (Jackson, 1986; Masters, Markl & Moffat, 1986; Landolfa & Barth, 1996), influence response to signals.